This Week!!!

Our week….in a super-tiny-itty-bitty-but-still-better-than-I-have-been-doing-nutshell:

Monday evening we were invited out to a Family Home Evening to share about our experiences with our missions with a family’s three sons. It was a really good experience that recalled to my memory some of the highlights of the past year and I was able to share that with the boys who also have desires to serve. They asked some really good questions. Then we asked what Missionary experiences that they have been having in their lives. They told us about their neighbor’s son with whom they are good friends. We talked to them about inviting him and them out to Scouting and Young Men activities, and having them over to their home. We will be going back to visit that family again this week and will be following up on how that went.

Tuesday I was on exchanges with Elder B, we had some good plans, but not all of them worked out quite how we had planned so we spent a significant amount of the day tracting. Elder B is a really good missionary, who is amazingly relaxed and knowledgeable for how long he has been out. While I was with Elder B we went to visit a less active family who moved up to this area from Las Vegas not to many years ago. Elder B, being from the Vegas area, was able to connect with them, particularly the husband really well, and the family was friendly and positive about the church so I think there is some promising potential there in getting them reactivated, we just have to plan out a good time to meet with them as it seems like they're hardly ever around. And we weren't able to find out what has been keeping them from church, but I suspect it might be work.

Wednesday we met with M and we talked some more about Baptism. We were able to find out that one of her biggest concerns is that she doesn't want to lose her religious heritage, which her family (mother and grandparents) back as far as memory goes have all been a part of. She believes all of the things that we teach at church, but she attends her families church sometimes because she want to try and help preserve the culture and language that her mother grew up with. We are meeting with her again tonight and have planned to talk about the Plan of Salvation, Family History, and Temple Work and how the Restored Gospel won’t take her away from her family and culture but will actually help her recover them better than anything else.

That evening we also met with Sister M, she is a less active convert to the church, and she has been having dreams about Family History. We talked about getting her into Family History work and directed her to where she could go to get an account and get started, we also talked about having one of the members come to her home to help her get the hang of things. I think she really does want to come to church. She is a really nice lady.

Thursday we got to meet with R and K. K is a recent convert and R is working on getting the Melchizedek Priesthood. We had a good lesson with them about enduring to the end and talked about the Temple as well. R seems excited. K seemed a little hesitant and had some questions. I think Eternal Marriage and the Temple is something we are going to need to spend some more time on with them. They are both super sweet people. They both have good hearts and a love for the Gospel and both regularly attend the Gospel Principles class.

Friday was somewhat of a disappointment; a lot of things fell through or just didn't work out, even the members we had planned to see we weren't really able to share a message with because everyone was busy. But we did a lot of finding and contacted a few potentials, some of whom we will be contacting again soon... others, not so soon. But we did meet a lot of cool people.

We had a kind of cool experience Saturday night. We had planned to stop by a Brother in the Ward but when we stopped by the babysitter answered the door and informed us that he and his wife were out and wouldn't be back until much later. We said that we would try back a different day and went to move on to our back up plan, but then we remembered that just the previous Sunday we had met his Sister at church and learned that she and her other (less active) brother and mother all lived not too far from there. We decided that before we went to our backup plan we would try to stop by them and see if we could share a message with them. As we drove up we saw them playing outside and we asked if we could visit with them for a little bit and share a message. They were actually really excited to see us, and they invited us in. We were able to get to know them a little better and talked about each of their conversion and testimony of the church. We shared a scripture and as it turns out, the less active brother does in fact believe the church is true and he wants to serve a Mission. We invited them all to church (just for good measure), and they all said they would try.

Sunday Elder H and I both spoke in Sacrament Meeting. And in the evening we had dinner with S, her less active brother, and her non-member husband. They were all very nice and we were able to share a message with them. Sister A's husband was very friendly and warm. I believe there could be progress made there with both of them.

After the A's we went to the M’s home to teach their soon-to-be son in law, D, one of the new member lessons. We talked about Eternal Marriage, and D understood it very well. He is a very smart guy. You might even say that he is a sober child, and quick to observe. He is very good about understanding and applying the Gospel. And the M's treat him like one of the family already. That’s just a really greats situation there. If only all investigators or new members had support like that pretty much all of our problems would be solved.

That was our week. Nothing terribly exciting happened, but we worked hard, and we'll be working even harder AND smarter this week. We'll see how that goes.

We are allowed by mission rules to be on the computer for two hours, but the libraries only allow one so if we want a second hour we have to find another library with two computers side by side that someone isn't already using... and some days that's just more of an ordeal than it is worth. But we try as much as we can. :)

These computers are way better than the ones in Langley, so I could probably be sending pictures back too, but unfortunately I haven't been taking too many. It’s a lot harder to carry my camera around in the summer. In the winter I just pack it in my coat pocket, but in the summer I don't have quite so many pockets so most of the pictures I end up taking are at night when we are at the apartment. And most of those are worrisome because they are of stupid ideas that one or either other of us has had, or they are pictures of our abysmally bad diet choices… but usually both. The latest and greatest one is toaster waffles and honey flavored Greek Yogurt (9% milk fat). Elder H is sensitive to dairy so it doesn't always end well, but he seems to be getting better and it’s not bad enough to get him to stop eating it. ;) 

I love you all, and hope all is well at home, and abroad.

Love,

Elder Thomson

P.S. Really quick like:

Why did the chicken cross the road... according to Mormons:

"As the egg is the chicken once was, and as the chicken is the egg may become."

"No success in crossing the road can compensate for failure in the coup."

Member One - "My home teachers are so good they always come on the first day of the month!"

Member Two - "Oh yeah?? Well my home teachers are so good that they always come the day before that!!"

Member One - "Huh?"